Sunday 13 May 2012

Scottish beer exports 1916 - 1933

I warned you there would be more numbers. I have these episodes where I go statistic crazy for a week or two. The family have learnt to ignore when an attack strikes. Feel free to do the same if numbers aren't your suitcase.

Below are the sort-of figures for Scottish exports that I thromised. Why sort-of? Because, while exports clearly make up the bulk of the figure, there are other categories of duty-free beer included. They're the best I can do, basically. In the last column I've included the actual amount of beer exported.

Well, almost, because it's in standard barrels. As are all the other figures. That's a nominal 36 gallon barrel with an OG of 1055. So if the beer A actually had an OG of 1027.5, 1 standard barrel of beer A would be two bulk barrels. Is that clear?

In most years the duty-free beer figure is about 10% large than the exported figure. Though there are a couple of years where it's around 20%. Very roughly, knocking 10% off the duty-free number should get us close to the number of standard barrels exported.

The period 1921 to 1930 is revealing. Scottish exports increased steadily while English exports remained fairly flat, but with a small decrease. 1927 being the turning point, where Scottish exports, probably for the first time ever, outstripped English ones.

That's an incredible achievement for Scottish brewing. remember that they were competing against the likes of Bass, Worthington and Whitbread. Much larger companies with far larger resources. Even the Scottish giants - McEwan, William Younger and Tennent - were much smaller concerns than their large English rivals.

Here's the table:

Beer Exported on Drawback and Free of Duty
England and Wales Scotland Ireland United Kingdom UK exports
1916 581,947 174,595 46,371 802,913
1917 314,333 73,896 30,095 418,324
1918 174,408 30,379 16,185 220,972
1919 470,794 195,995 33,821 700,610
1920 312,868 146,726 16,698 485,292 390,248
1921 215,719 92,193 12,648 320,560
1922 207,882 117,978 10,239 336,099 260,914
1923 176,913 108,544 2,270 287,727 257,454
1924 158,373 132,889 753 292,015 264,003
1925 180,731 145,603 415 326,749 290,824
1926 178,155 168,609 305 347,069 283,033
1927 156,258 179,242 232 338,732 287,445
1928 170,728 193,255 363,983 328,029
1929 176,381 223,638 400,019 352,942
1930 173,988 204,345 378,333 328,524
1931 159,278 147,527 306,805 289,516
1932 136,231 133,240 269,471 244,525
1933 117,363 126,254 243,617 217,981
Sources:
Brewers' Journal 1919, page 65.
Brewers' Journal 1922, page 71.
Brewers' Journal 1925, page 83.
Brewers' Journal 1928, page 87.
Brewers' Journal 1928, page 87.
Brewers' Journal 1934, page 162.
Brewers' Almanack 1928, p. 115
Brewers' Almanack 1955, p. 57

I don't I've quite worked the number mania out of my system yet. Prepare yourselves for more.

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